trammel
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See also: Trammel
English[edit]
Etymology[edit]
From Middle English trameyle, from Old French tramail (“net for catching fish”), from Late Latin tremaculum. See Italian tramaglio.
Pronunciation[edit]
Noun[edit]
trammel (plural trammels)
- Whatever impedes activity, progress, or freedom, such as a net or shackle.
- 1825, Francis Jeffrey, “Campbell's Theodric”, in The Edinburgh Review January 1825:
- [They] disclaim the trammels of any sordid contract.
- 1898, William Graham Sumner, “The Conquest of the United States by Spain”, in War and Other Essays, Yale, published 1911, page 332:
- The men who came here were able to throw off all the trammels of tradition and established doctrine.
- A fishing net that has large mesh at the edges and smaller mesh in the middle
- A kind of net for catching birds, fishes, or other prey.
- 1633, 1609, Richard Carew, The Survey of Cornwall. […], new edition, London: […] B. Law, […]; Penzance, Cornwall: J. Hewett, published 1769, →OCLC:
- The tuck carrieth a like fashion , save that it is narrower meshed , and ( therefore scarce lawful ) with a long bunt in the midst : the trammel differeth not much from the shape of this bunt, and serveth to such use as the wear and haking.
- 1633,
- A set of rings or other hanging devices, attached to a transverse bar suspended over a fire, used to hang cooking pots etc.
- A net for confining a woman's hair.
- 1590, Edmund Spenser, “Book II, Canto II”, in The Faerie Queene. […], London: […] [John Wolfe] for William Ponsonbie, →OCLC:
- Her golden lockes she roundly did uptye
In breaded tramels, that no looser heares
Did out of order stray about her daintie eares.
- A kind of shackle used for regulating the motions of a horse and making it amble.
- (engineering) An instrument for drawing ellipses, one part of which consists of a cross with two grooves at right angles to each other, the other being a beam carrying two pins (which slide in those grooves), and also the describing pencil.
- A beam compass.
Translations[edit]
something that impedes activity, freedom, or progress
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device to suspend cooking pots over a fire
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Verb[edit]
trammel (third-person singular simple present trammels, present participle (UK) trammelling or (US) trammeling, simple past and past participle (UK) trammelled or (US) trammeled)
- To entangle, as in a net.
- 1880, Dante Gabriel Rosetti, Samuel Taylor Coleridge, lines 9–10:
- the scarce-snatched hours
Which deepening pain left to his lordliest powers: —
Heaven lost through spider-trammelled prison-bars.
- (transitive) To confine; to hamper; to shackle.
- 1854, Henry David Thoreau, Slavery in Massachusetts:
- In their vote, you would get something of some value, at least, however small; but in the other case, only the trammelled judgment of an individual, of no significance, be it which way it might.
- 1948, Winston Churchill, The Second World War:
- Virtuous motives, trammeled by inertia and timidity, are no match for armed and resolute wickedness.
Translations[edit]
to entangle, as in a net
to hamper
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Anagrams[edit]
Categories:
- English terms inherited from Middle English
- English terms derived from Middle English
- English terms derived from Old French
- English terms derived from Late Latin
- English terms derived from Italian
- English 2-syllable words
- English terms with IPA pronunciation
- English terms with audio links
- Rhymes:English/æməl
- Rhymes:English/æməl/2 syllables
- English lemmas
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- en:Engineering
- English verbs
- English transitive verbs
- en:Fishing
- en:Hair
- en:Horse tack
- en:Tools